I had no idea you owned that. Or that the clear head came off and there was a pilot. So utterly amazing.

I whipped this up last week. M1 Dada painted with Bullmark Guiro Seijin colors (my favorite scheme). I painted it entirely with Monster Kolor and gave everything but the blue a matte finish. I thought the colors were fitting for the mold, and people seem to have this notion that MK is only for gloss and pearls, so I wanted to show how flexible it really is ;)

Yeah, I'm VERY pleased with it. And now...I'm so, SOOOO tempted to bust open that MISB Masterpiece Grimlock that I was gonna flip someday and have them beef. Shit would be straight TITANIC!!

As for where to find, it's just a regular Marmit release. Nothing secret. You don't have to be on any fucking list. You don't have to blow the right "artist". You don't have to prove you're the biggest fan by waiting in absurd lines to get into private parties.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I first heard of this thing on a CDX news blurb...

>And now...I'm so, SOOOO tempted to bust open that MISB Masterpiece Grimlock that I >was gonna flip someday and have them beef.

What the hell's the matter with you, Reverend?

I'm only mildly attracted to the character, but MP Grimlock is one of the best transforming toys ever. Not that there was anything wrong with Gee-Wun Grimlock, but MP Grimlock actually manages to be better--as a toy--without losing any of the vintage flavor.

Well, the Takaratomy version, anyway. I've found the US versions to be a bit loosey-goosey in comparison. Not to mention the rounded fangs and claws aren't too cool.

Oh man, I think I missed your post, Daniel. YES...I'd love a Machine Dragon version, but for some reason, I've been leaning towards more "natural" green kaiju tones. Guess I have too much blue in my collection! But anyway, yeah, Marmit would be kinda nuts for NOT doing a blue/chrome version of this sculpt!

MattAlt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I didn't know Sunguts produced a color variation
> of the "Trad 11"! Do you where/when it came out
> and if any other colors were produced?
>
> [toyboxdx.com]
> 0

I picked these up recently from Mandarake, so I'm really not sure when they came out. I've heard a rumor that Sunguts produced more of these last year (perhaps due to our urgings when he visited SF in 2009- or so I'd like to believe).

I have the two Trads above and one that is cast entirely in olive green. That leads me to think that he produced a tan Gallop as well. Maybe 6 total?

Pretty sure these were at least *meant to be* licensed Death Kappa toys...maybe Daniel or Matt can shed some light on that. But anyway, a couple weeks ago, I picked up the "Angry Kappa-sama" toy from Shikaruna Koubo. There's no apparent mention of the movie in any of the solicitations I've seen for this toy...so I'm a bit confused...

Anyway, it's delightfully sinister!

On this "angry" version, they decided to use what I'd call a more "natural" bluish-green for this butt-gobbling frog-turtle-brute. The first version was, I think, more accurate to the movie, but I wasn't as impressed with the sort of pallid greyish-beige coloring.

The quality of the paintwork is insane. As usual from these guys. Very lifelike. The shell on the back looks great--the photo doesn't quite show the subtlety of the blending of the colors. Again, very natural-looking.

Of course, the red eyes are probably what most emphasize his "angry" disposition. Watch out for your cornhole!

Oh, and I'm sure I've asked this before, but I forget: was there ever an official ruling on the name of this company?? I've seen it romanized as "Shikaruna" or "Siccaluna" (the latter being a rather weird way to romanize a Japanese name)...

I'm almost certain that the Siccaluna Death Kappa is officially licensed. The product page notes Nakasu Productions / Haraguchi Tomoo as copyright holder. Sometimes there is a little sticker on the header to note the licensor. S-K produces a lot of licensed merchandise (in fact, Manga Juku, which is sort of the parent of S-K, produced little T-28 dioramas before they got into the whole new vinyl thing).

Siccaluna is the actual name. The owner wanted a name that would be easy for westerners to read/recognize and so began with a westernized name (who knows what it means, though). Through an ironic twist, we westerners mistakenly took his Japanese reverse-translation of the name in katakana as the original spelling (Shikaruna). This mistake was perpetuated over several years, until Siccaluna wrote a blog post noting our collective error.

Indeed! Compare to an actual living Death Kappa! (That dude still owes me $5 worth of cucumbers.)

I don't know the deal with the licensing, but given that the kappa suit was recycled from a different movie by the same director (Kibakichi, if I recall), the manufacturer was probably able to come to an agreement with the owner of the suit (i.e., Haraguchi-san) rather than the production company that made the film. (Which is why his name appears on the card instead of Sushi Typhoon.) But that's just me guessing.

Matt, that looks like an after-sex shot...where you blew your wad too early! But who could blame you? Rubber suits are sexy! ;)

But that's a sound theory about the toy name/licensing issue.

And thanks for clearing up the company name, Daniel. I always thought it was suspect how the machine translation for the name was "Shikaruna"...when machine translations are always horrendous! But Siccaluna is just so weird!

Anyway, I was under the impression that basically ALL of Siccaluna's toys were licensed--most of their vinyl consist of patchi kaiju from Sekai no Kaiju...